This page was last updated on August 17, 2023.
For many businesses, getting your name out there is so important for building brand awareness and authority, and in order to do so, you must engage in quality off-site SEO techniques. One very popular and effective link building tactic is utilizing HARO, something we at Sixth City regularly use in our own marketing efforts.
What Is HARO?
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is a platform created by journalists to gain knowledge and feedback from relevant outside sources. They retrieve information from readers or other experts to bridge the gap on subjects in their pieces, while adding reliable sources to their articles.
How Can My Business Benefit From HARO?
Some key benefits of HARO include:
- Establishing credibility – Since you can provide information that reporters cannot, you will showcase how you are an expert in your niche. This lets any readers know your company’s credibility and status in the industry.
- Increasing company awareness – What better way to get your name out there than to have an article feature you? Readers may search your website to find out more info, leading to you generating more traffic to your website, and potential sales.
- Boosting your SEO – If a journalist cites your website in their article, they will also link back to your website. Since many magazines and newspapers have a lot of domain authority, this will in turn help boost your own DA and make your site more visible to search engines.
More Places Like HARO
HARO is a great way to form connections, increase your credibility, and establish authority online. Here is a list of other sites that will do the same!
Our Pick: Featured (Formerly Terkel)
Also newer to the marketing scene is Featured. It’s free to sign up, with paid plans available, and you are able to reply to requests from various niches similar to HARO (business, home and garden, real estate, and more). They also include pitches that are local to Arizona, which can be an asset for businesses out west looking for more local link opportunities.
Buzzstream
Buzzstream is a tool that does research into relevant influencers in a certain niche. You can also organize outreach, reach prospects, and follow up with influencers.
Key advantages include:
- Managing link building in one place
- User-friendly interface
- Affordable and effective
- Ability to find information quickly
Meltwater
More than 30,000 companies use Meltwater to stay up to date on the latest conversations within a preferred industry. The three features include monitoring to receive daily digests, analyzing media coverage patterns, and distributing your content to the right audience.
With Meltwater, you can:
- Look at all mentions of your brand easily
- Monitor social media websites
- Look at insights on your editorial footprint
- View the latest trends and news insights
NinjaOutreach
NinjaOutreach is a complete CRM system with prospecting, managing, analyzing, and reporting abilities. This software collects a great amount of information from a database and completes an outreach template for industry experts. The well-designed platform is very easy to use and eases the communication process between journalists and experts.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo analyzes a lot of content and makes it accessible to numerous businesses. It will show you the most shared links and industry experts on each topic. Backlinks are shown per connection you make, too!
ProfNet
ProfNet is a platform that uses both experts and journalists. The journalists will search for the expert and the expert provides them with their knowledge and publicity. It is an email-based model that reaches out to experts via email queries. This specific software has been around since 1992 and touts access to many experts across a wide variety of sectors.
Media Kiti
By joining Media Kiti, you network with lifestyle content creators and representatives from name-brand companies. Connect with others to see what additions you can make to your posts and vice versa. Some key aspects of Media Kiti are:
- Exclusive opportunities
- Strong trusted relationships
- Unique story ideas
- Searchability for valuable information
- Ability to reach people directly
SourceBottle
SourceBottle is a free platform that allows journalists and bloggers to find knowledgeable sources. Just like HARO, it gives industry experts publicity and shows off their knowledge. You can either find a source or be a source. The topics found on the platform, which you can tailor to your preference and expertise, include:
- Business and finance
- Environment
- General
- Health and wellbeing
- Lifestyle, food, and fashion
- Parenting and education
- PR, media, and marketing
- Professional services
- Property
- Technology
- Travel and leisure
Additionally, the paid subscription allows you access to specific giveaways and case studies, as well as the chance for your insight to be used in specific media pitches.
So, if you are looking for a free online service that notifies you when a journalist is looking for detailed information specific to your expertise, SourceBottle might be the HARO alternative for you.
Pitch Rate
Another site that connects experts and journalists is Pitch Rate. For free, you can start building your connections with experts to be the go-to credible source for reporters. The categories of expertise range from business to design/architecture to love and relationships. On Pitch Rate, you are sure to find a query to fit your expertise!
Qwoted
One of the best alternatives to HARO, which is new to the industry, is Qwoted. Marketers, writers, and PR professionals can sign up for free, and can even manage accounts for people they represent, or just themselves. Under the free plan, you are able to pitch your answer to three “premium” sources, but there are others that are free to respond to. Similar to HARO, you can receive customized emails on queries that are related to your interests.
OnePitch
OnePitch is a great platform for small businesses, as its goal is to help you build meaningful connections with established journalists. Additionally, OnePitch uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist you in making more personalized, yet effective pitches. They do so by having people fill out pitch templates or upload press releases. From there, the AI analyzes the information and produces a custom media list based on your needs.
Creating an account through OnePitch is completely free and easy to complete.
JustReachOut
Starting at $199 a month, JustReachOut allows you to be considered an expert in your industry, and similarly find specific journalists, podcast hosts, bloggers, and more.
As stated in the name, JustReachOut allows you to pitch yourself, as well as your work. So, whether you want to pitch yourself as a potential podcast guest, or even pitch a blog post you wrote that could replace a broken backlink, you have the ability to communicate directly with journalists that can use you as a source.
This platform also conveniently gives you the ability to view whether the journalist has opened your request or not.
Help a B2B Writer
Help a B2B Writer is like HARO but without the hassle of giving and receiving requests that do not align with your expertise. Writers and sources will be able to sign up, submit requests for sources, and even register as a source in some of the following fields:
- Advertising
- Artificial intelligence
- Ecommerce
- Finance
- Marketing
- SaaS
- SEO
- Social Media
- Much more!
Once these steps are complete, requests will only get submitted to potential sources that accurately match the request itself. From there, sources will reach out to writers in order to submit their official quotes! Best of all, the platform is completely free.
With the rise of journalists utilizing social media platforms, some choose to post their requests straight to their feeds, making Twitter a useful platform for this very reason.
Because of its versatility and use, some of the benefits of using Twitter include:
- It is free!
- You can search hashtags specific to your requests, such as #journorequests
- There is less competition to search for specific queries than the HARO-specific platforms
Twitter also allows to get into contact with journalists in several different ways. If a journalist has their contact information in their Twitter bio, you can contact them directly. If not, you can either respond to their tweet with the request or even send a message over Twitter DMs.
FAQs on HARO Alternatives
When choosing the right HARO alternative for your business, there are several things to keep in mind while going through the process. Here are some answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.
How do I know I am choosing the right HARO alternative for my business?
If you are unsure of which HARO alternative to choose, we recommend doing thorough research before ultimately making a decision. Though all of them achieve the same goals, different features of each platform may appeal to different individuals. So, make sure you try out a couple of them to find the right fit for you and your business!
Will I have to pay for a HARO alternative?
Paying for a HARO alternative generally depends on the platform you go with. If you are looking for a free alternative that is still going to deliver you results, we would recommend considering some of the options that we mentioned above.
How do I increase my chances of being chosen for HARO and likewise?
You are able to increase your chances of being chosen by staying consistent with your responses to reporters about topics that are related to your industry. It is also important to include detailed contact information for yourself so journalists can easily contact you if they need any additional information.
Reach Out to Sixth City for Link Building Help!
Here at Sixth City, we can provide you with many different SEO strategies to help your company boost its online presence. We pride ourselves on our diligent link building tactics.
Contact us today to learn more about the SEO help we can offer. We look forward to hearing from you!
